


Normalcy is Relative

by LightDescending



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M, Night Vale, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightDescending/pseuds/LightDescending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small collection (ostensibly and eventually) of drabbles centered around the more 'typical' aspects of Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normalcy is Relative

The weather has already started playing by the time Chad (the intern) gets Cecil’s attention through the booth’s window.

When he does, Cecil doubletakes; stands, and lurches towards the door; is brought up short by the headphones he still wears on his head; spends roughly 10.8 seconds disentangling himself, fumbling all the while; and finally rushes towards the booth, his steps quick and close together. Carlos watches all this with semi-detached alarm, bordering on amusement. Cecil opens the door separating the himself from the broadcast studio with frightening speed, one hand rapidly smoothing about the lower edge of his vest. He releases the doorknob and nearly knocks Carlos’s clipboard away as he extends his hand in greeting.

“You’re Carlos!” He blurts, eyes bright behind his glasses.

“Um. Yes.” Carlos does his best not to catalogue every shred of visual input he can glean from this man, but it’s very difficult – like much of the town, he attracts attention. Cecil is remarkable physically only in that he is completely… average. It’s not quantifiable from observation alone, of course, but he’s fairly certain that Cecil conforms to the median height and weight of young 30-something males taken from the broadest possible sample. His clothing, however… his tie has a stylized eye motif all over it; he wears straps around his biceps like an old-time telegraph operator; his corduroy pants are an alarming shade of yellow; and his shirt sleeves, rolled up to the elbows, show discrete tattoos worked in white and wine-coloured inks wrapping around his forearms. As Carlos stares at them, they seem to move. He blinks, and they’re once more inanimate.

He attributes the phenomenon to a trick of the dim studio lighting and looks up to meet Cecil Palmer’s eyes. He suddenly realizes the man still has his hand forward, like an offering, and has to fumble his Geiger counter and clipboard under the same arm to shake it. Where their palms meet Carlos feels steady warmth, odd only because Cecil shivers slightly.

“I’m. Well. I do the thing. The show, I mean, I do the show. Have you heard it yet?” Cecil finishes hopefully.

“Well, no, I… well I just got here, I had the press conference this morning and we’re still setting up the lab and doing preliminary readings around town… I… you see, Mr. Palmer, I-”

“You can call me Cecil. If you want. You don’t have to.”

“Cecil. Right.” Cecil shivers again, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet, a smile quirking his lips. Is it really that cold in here? Carlos resolves to gauge the temperature as well while he’s at it.

“I was wondering… if it wouldn’t be too intrusive, could I gather some materials in here? Strictly for our initial assessment of typical conditions, you know, things like air quality, electromagnetic activity, relative moisture content… fairly standard, at least for what we’ve been doing elsewhere so far…”

“Of course! Um. Yes!” Cecil’s hands flutter around his sides for an instant, like he doesn’t know what to do with them, before he retreats quickly back into the studio and hops onto his stool. He returns his headphones around his neck, awaiting the resumption of the broadcast, and beckons for Carlos to come join him. “Do you have time for an interview while you’re at it?” He says bright, eager. “I’m sure everyone would love to hear about the work you’re doing…”

“No, thank you, I’m afraid I need to make this short, I’m needed elsewhere soon. We’re still troubleshooting the seismographs and trying to determine if there’s a malfunction…” He trails off.

Cecil looks crestfallen but gamely covers it up with another smile. “Of course. Right. Well, feel free to do your – science! I’m here if you have any questions. At your disposal.”

Carlos is already switching on the Geiger counter, feeling faintly bemused and like he’s missing something obvious. It feels like a small itch at the base of his skull. He settles for a polite response and resolves to consider this encounter in depth once he finishes. “Thank you. You know, I’ll have to start listening to your show…”

It isn’t until later, when Carlos peels away from the curb in a car driving far too quickly - his mind swarming with flashing yellow radioactivity symbols and the stark knowledge that, at those levels, his teeth should be loosening in their gums and hair follicles shrivelling already - that he realizes the other man was blushing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first piece of writing that I did for WTNV, and it was gifted to sociallychallengednerdproblems on tumblr!   
> There are a few more ideas I have for drabbles that I may work on in the coming weeks (for the time being, I'm labouring over the next installment of "The Desert Bluffs Expansion Project" which is taking much longer than anticipated).   
> The prompt was: "Carlos goes to the radio station for the first time".


End file.
